Centre left takes strong lead in Italy election - polls

(Reuters) - The centre left is strongly leading in Italy's election, 5-6 percentage points ahead of the centre right of former premier Silvio Berlusconi, according to two telephone polls of voters.

A poll for Sky television published after voting ended at 2 p.m. British Time, showed the anti-establishment protest movement of Beppe Grillo taking third place.

It showed the centre left ahead by 5.5 points in the lower house and by six points in the Senate although the result there will depend on key battleground regions. In the most important, Lombardy, Sky said the centre left was tied with Berlusconi.

Sky had the centre left of Pier Luigi Bersani on 34.5 percent, Berlusconi's centre right on 29 percent, Grillo on 19 percent and Monti slumping to 9.5 percent after a lacklustre centrist campaign that deeply disappointed his backers among foreign governments and investors.

2. Beppe G.

3. "The centre left is strongly leading in Italy's election, raising the chances of a stable pro-reform

government in the euro zone's third largest economy, according to two telephone polls published after voting ended."

Italy's electoral laws guarantee a strong majority in the lower house to the party or coalition that wins the biggest share of the national vote.

However the Senate, elected on a region-by-region basis, is more complicated and the result could turn on a handful of regions, including Lombardy in the rich industrial north - which the polls showed was tied - and the southern island of Sicily.

The 76-year-old Berlusconi, a billionaire media tycoon, pledged sweeping tax cuts and accused Monti of being a puppet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a media blitz that halved the lead of the centre left since the start of the year.

But many voters said they were sick of his broken promises and his campaign faltered at the end, with Grillo stealing some of his votes. The election could mark the end of a flamboyant two-decade career at the centre of the political stage.

We're still waiting for the projections from the Chamber of Deputies, but if they contradict the exit polls in the same way this may mark an amazing comeback for Berlusconi.Either that or his centre-right coalition will dominate the Senate while the centre-left dominates the Chamber of Deputies – deadlock.

6. Poll was wrong

Italian shares and bonds lost earlier gains after election projections showed former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative bloc leading in the Senate, contradicting initial exit polls and raising the specter of deadlock in parliament.

The markets are going lower on this news. Since the results are so confusing, it's probably wise to wait for the actual results.

Beppe Grillo (Five Stars) is currently winning the single-party totals, so there may be some upheavals ahead. Both Grillo and Berlusconi's group are anti-austerity.

Italy on Monday night risked pitching into political turmoil as projections of the result of its general election pointed to a hung parliament and confirmed that the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), led by an ex-comedian, Beppe Grillo, had exploded onto the national stage.

Projections suggested on balance that the centre-left would take the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, by a tiny margin. But they also indicated that a resurgent right led by Silvio Berlusconi would have slightly more seats - though not necessarily more votes - in the Senate.

Crucially, it seemed certain that neither right nor left could obtain an outright majority in the upper house, where the balance would be held by the M5S. So far, Grillo has ruled out supporting either side in his drive to sweep away Italy’s existing political parties and the cronyistic culture they support.

Exceeding even the most adventurous pre-electoral predictions, the populist M5S was set to emerge as Italy’s biggest single party - a result that will send shock waves through the eurozone and beyond. Because it is running alone and not in a coalition, however, Grillo’s movement lagged the two big alliances in the number of seats.

11. The center-left coalition got the most votes in the lower house and in the Senate but

"Mr Bersani also won the national vote for the Senate, but was unable to secure the 158 seats required for a majority.

As bonus seats are distributed in the upper house according to regional votes, Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right bloc was expected to emerge with a higher number of seats."

In any case the center-left only beat Berlusconi by 0.4% in the lower house, only winning a majority of the seats because in Italy that is automatic for the group with the most votes.

Beppo Grillo of the Five Star Movement has said he does not want to join a government with either group. Monti got so few votes and seats that his party is irrelevant. The only possible government would be a coalition of Bersani and Berlusconi which it seems everyone says will never happen.

12. Spain extremely worried by impact of deadlocked Italy vote

(Reuters) - Spain said it was extremely worried about the impact of Italy's deadlocked election result, warning on Tuesday the deadlock could affect the entire euro zone.

Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said there was a feeling of "extreme concern" over possible movements in bond spreads as a reaction to the results.

"This is a jump to nowhere that does not bode well either for Italy or for Europe," Garcia-Margallo told journalists on the sidelines of a conference in Madrid.

The Spanish government said it was monitoring the situation, especially the fallout on financial markets as the premium investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year debt rather than the German benchmark jumped to 393 basis points, a level not seen in several weeks, when it emerged a cabinet could be hard to form.